When Rivers Meet’s Aaron Bond on Phil Collins and Genesis

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Aaron Bond is one half of the married-couple blues rock band When Rivers Meet. He’s a massive fan of Phil Collins and Genesis – but, as he tells Prog, that wasn’t always the case.

“I’d obviously heard of Phil Collins but I wasn’t really into him to start with. Then a friend of mine, a massive Genesis and Collins fan, introduced me to them. We’d go to this club where they’d play that music all the time. I was like, ‘Actually, this is really amazing!’

You realised it wasn’t straight music – it went all over the place. There were so many elements to it. And the skill that Genesis had was phenomenal.

I didn’t realise just how prog they were until I started to properly delve into their back catalogue. I’m really pleased that I got to see them play on their last tour.

I really like all aspects of Phil Collins – whether it’s him with Genesis, as a solo artist or gun for hire. I love his solo stuff, especially In The Air Tonight, Against All Odds and I Wish It Would Rain Down.

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They’re incredible songs, and then you go back to the Genesis stuff and it’s like, ‘Oh my God!’ When you look at his solo stuff you can see the influence he had on them. I love all of his stuff – he’s incredible.

As a drummer, he’s a pioneer of the style he played. He’s up there with the very best of them. And there’s not many people that could sing and drum at the same time as well as he could, that’s for sure!

He helped bring prog into popular music. His influence on the 80s was massive – even down to the clothes he wore. Remember him in Miami Vice? And he was in Buster too. It’s an amazing journey he made; he’s quite the performer.

I don’t have a favourite Phil Collins or Genesis album. I prefer to dip in and out of individual tracks like Land Of Confusion or Jesus He Knows Me. Just listen to those songs and tell me you don’t love them. It can’t be done!”

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Julian Marszalek is the former Reviews Editor of The Blues Magazine. He has written about music for Music365, Yahoo! Music, The Quietus, The Guardian, NME and Shindig! among many others. As the Deputy Online News Editor at Xfm he revealed exclusively that Nick Cave’s second novel was on the way. During his two-decade career, he’s interviewed the likes of Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Ozzy Osbourne, and has been ranted at by John Lydon. He’s also in the select group of music journalists to have actually got on with Lou Reed. Marszalek taught music journalism at Middlesex University and co-ran the genre-fluid Stow Festival in Walthamstow for six years.

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